The Way The River Goes opens with its title track, its first couple of stanzas taking me back to my childhood. “Me and Bill grew up the best of friends/We knew every inch of that river bend/If there’s buried treasure, we put it there.” I hope everyone had a river, or at least a creek to explore the way we did. But just as a river flows, never remaining still, the story of this song moves forward in time to describe events and people in the town, with the repeated line “That’s just the way the river goes ‘round here” concluding each section. Yet, even as the river is in motion, it doesn’t move from the area, and that works as a description for those who remain in the small towns of our youth. “The Way The River Goes” is followed by “While You Were Sleeping,” which, as it begins, sounds and feels like an early morning, when you are up but don’t want to wake anyone else, when the world feels like your own. It can be a time for reflection, before anything makes demands on your attention. The song gently eases in like the day, and it builds from there. A train lends itself so naturally to being a metaphor, as it does here in this song of leaving.
“Ever Since Columbine” is a song about how we as a nation have sadly grown accustomed to there being shootings. They happen all the time now. And each time, those in power pretend to be outraged and horrified, for a day or so, but nothing is done to stop it from happening again. It should be clear to everyone by now that guns are the problem. There will always be unhinged people, there will always be morons. What we have to do is keep them from getting their hands on firearms. “From Fort Hood to Sandy Hook, and Las Vegas now/It’s a killing field of front page news, we’ve grown immune to somehow/And the families left behind, you know they’ll never be the same/Did you hear there was another shooting today?” I really thought Sandy Hook would be the one to finally bring about some serious change. I was wrong. If not that one, then what will it take? What will it take for leaders to finally lead, to ignore the damn gun lobbyists and the assholes who think the Second Amendment to be the most powerful words ever put down on paper and yet misunderstand those very words? “A well-regulated militia,” the Amendment says, for those who are wondering. It doesn’t say that everyone should be allowed to purchase whatever guns he or she desires. This track features some beautiful work on fiddle, and a passionate vocal performance.
I’ve been to New Orleans only once, spending a week there to enjoy the Mardi Gras celebrations back in the early 1990s, and yet that city and its music and its air have stayed with me in a meaningful way. And so, like many people, I was depressed by the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina. I understand from folks who have been there recently that the city still hasn’t completely recovered. “Goodbye New Orleans” is about that, sort of, and about how climate change will eventually (and not too far into the future) put the city underwater, but also about the questionable history of the city. It features some nice work on accordion. “The cathedral spires, the Superdome, the old wrought iron stairs/But everything that you can climb someday washes out to sea/So goodbye, yeah, goodbye, New Orleans.” That’s followed by another song of goodbye, “Farewell Maggie Valley.” It seems we are saying a lot of goodbyes these days – to famous musicians, to intelligence, to sanity, to truth, to democracy. This song, however, is about saying goodbye to a place and a person. “I'm only taking what I can fit in the bed of my Ranger truck/The rest all went to Goodwill; good riddance, it's just stuff/On the kitchen table you'll find my forwarding address/I'll miss this town a little, I'll miss you more than I'll confess.” This track features more moving work on fiddle.
“Whatcha Gonna Do?” has a lighter, more cheerful vibe, even as he sings about getting older and getting depressed, for at its heart it is a love song. Check out these line: “They say ‘look before you leap,’ but I'm so ready to fly/'Cause I want more than just gettin' by/Not politics or religion, those are just opinions/I want the thing that really gets me high/And that's you right here this morning, and you late last night.” I love that work on mandolin. Then in “Never” these lines stand out for me: “I canceled the paper months ago, 'cause I couldn't take the news/But it still comes every day, what am I supposed to do?” I think most folks can relate to wanting a break from the news. But how do we escape from it? That’s followed by “Ghosts Of Wichita.” I tend to love any song that contains a reference to Shakespeare’s work, and this one contains a reference to The Tempest in the lines “To hear you tell the story now, it rings like a grudge/That you’ve been nursing to feed to the judge/Who said the past was always prologue, his gavel was the law/When he gave you half of the ghosts of Wichita.” It is Antonio who says “And by that destiny to perform an act/Whereof what's past is prologue, what to come/In yours and my discharge.”
Like the album’s title track, “Somewhere Down The Line” uses the idea of a river, in the line “That river ain’t hard to cross.” But these are the lines that are especially striking to me (probably because as I get older I am more and more aware of time passing): “Always thinking there's gonna be more time/Somewhere down the line.” This song has a sweet and somewhat soothing sound. It’s followed by “Surrender,” a beautiful and gentle song. Here he sings “I could hold you like their song holds the wind,” and in that moment, it feels like this song holds us in that very way. That gentle vibe is helped by some wonderful work on pedal steel. “And let this surrender be your last/Let the past just be the past/Don’t think twice, don’t look back/We’re almost there.” Then we get a fun Cajun-style number, “You Make Me Wanna Dance,” featuring accordion. This is one to get us smiling, and yes, even dancing. “She taught me a lesson about taking a chance/You may not be ready when fate takes your hand.”
“Last Night” is a sweet song describing a gathering of friends. “When the beer ran out, wine showed up, and no one turned it down/So we got drunk and we were foolish, it got a little out of hand.” Yeah, there is certainly an element of nostalgia. We can all recall nights like the one described here. These lines make me smile: “Soon the intimate and amorous paired up and left/A couple made out on the couch, where someone else slept.” That’s followed by “Sun’s Gonna Shine When I’m Gone,” which has a bright feel, partly due to the presence of mandolin. “There ain’t no future in the future; even the truth is in the past/The present’s here and now, but I don’t think it’ll last.” This song is like a cheerful look at passing. The album concludes with “Call It A Night,” a song about being a traveling musician, playing in bars, sometimes to folks who aren’t paying attention, and it is of course a perfect song to wrap up the album. “‘Cause I’m holdin’ on to one song at a time/Just trying to play it right/Then I’m two hundred miles down the road/So I think we should call it a night.”
CD Track List
- The Way The River Goes
- While You Were Sleeping
- Ever Since Columbine
- Goodbye New Orleans
- Farewell Maggie Valley
- Whatcha Gonna Do?
- Never
- Ghosts Of Wichita
- Somewhere Down The Line
- Surrender
- You Make Me Wanna Dance
- Last Night
- Sun’s Gonna Shine When I’m Gone
- Call It A Night
The Way The River Goes was released on January 28, 2022.
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